Wrong Side Mediterranean

In the books of Fitzroy Mclean, Patrick Leigh Fermor and the Special Air Service (SAS) I noticed that all of them went at some point to Cairo, Egypt during the Second World War. The place to be. Where plans were made, wounds where licked and parties celebrated.

The details of this era is analysed and written down with great skill in the book: Cooper, 'Cairo in the War 1939-1945' (London 1989).  

Eyeopeners for me: 

• The way the Egyptians deeply hated their "suppressor" Great-Brittain. They wanted independence and rule their own country.
• The impact of 'The Flap' on the social structure of Cairo. Only after the Axis were beaten by the Allied at the 'Second Battle of El Alamein' (november 1942) the daughters of the Egyptian upperclass was willingly dancing again with Allied officers. In a way it seemed a miracle that Rommel never reached Cairo. Everyone was expecting the Germans and Italians.

Nice quotes:

"The Italians hated the desert, and kept it at bay by building stone houses in their camps, laying out paths and little gardens. The Germans fought it with science: their stores were full of foot powder, eye-lotions, insect repellents, mouth washes and disinfectants. The British, Australians and New Zealanders simply ignored the desert. They slept in blankets on the ground, and were not unduly worried about germs" (page 114).

"The taste of war was inescapable in their lives, but the theme that most preoccupied the poets of 'Personal Landscape' was exile. (...) It was not England that they missed [in Cairo, Egypt], but Greece. Quite apart from their attachments to the country, the war had landed them, in Durrell's words, 'on the wrong side of the Mediterranean'" (page 157).

One of the places to be in Cairo during the Second World War was Shepheard's Hotel:  

Entrance of Shepheard's Hotel, Cairo, Egypt in 1890.

The hall of Shepheard's Hotel, Cairo, Egypt before 1923. 

P.S. Both pictures are not being used in Cooper's book.